More Bad News On Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics

[Blossom]

I just saw this interesting news story linking fluoroquinolone antibiotics and heart problems.

Commonly used antibiotics may lead to heart problems

 

[Tarmander]

like those things need more bad news!

 

[Blossom]

like those things need more bad news!

Yeah, I wish they would be taken off the market.

 

[Terma]

I wondered what those strange palpitations were that year. Good thing I've been on magnesium and taurine ever since. Not a bad bet.

Still feels like the house won. The damage happens so damn fast and it's worsened by corticosteroids and NSAIDs, which doctors love to give at the same time. That was the first year I seriously considered murdering someone. Good thing I was too crippled to leave a chair. ************* thought of everything.

 

[Blossom]

I wondered what those strange palpitations were that year. Good thing I've been on magnesium and taurine ever since. Not a bad bet.

Still feels like the house won. The damage happens so damn fast and it's worsened by corticosteroids and NSAIDs, which doctors love to give at the same time. That was the first year I seriously considered murdering someone. Good thing I was too crippled to leave a chair. ************* thought of everything.

Yes, when I was on levaquin for 50 days straight it basically destroyed me. I didn’t appreciate the full impact it had for many years. Sorry to hear you experienced that nightmare too.

 

[Terma]

That's ridiculously long exposure. You must've had the whole plethora of effects (neuropathy, liver, gut, tendons, cartilage)? I only had a short course 5 years ago and that was it - but with a NSAID - I bet that's what tipped the scales [toward collagen damage]. I wanted to jump off a bridge every day that year, so I figured I might as well bring someone with me (you can't do it because you know the media will spin it against your cause - I really thought about this lol) **.

Haven't read about it in awhile but last I could figure they kill off the chondrocytes in joints and that lets MMP enzymes eat away the cartilage (the latter would be why the corticosteroids and NSAIDs accelerate the damage). It's almost pointless to research because by the time you figure it out the permanent damage has long been done.

There are way too many stories like ours.

** That was probably serotonin lol. Anyway thanks for the words.

 

[Blossom]

That's ridiculously long exposure. You must've had the whole plethora of effects (neuropathy, liver, gut, tendons, cartilage)? I only had a short course 5 years ago and that was it - but with a NSAID - I bet that's what tipped the scales [toward collagen damage]. I wanted to jump off a bridge every day that year, so I figured I might as well bring someone with me (you can't do it because you know the media will spin it against your cause - I really thought about this lol) **.

Haven't read about it in awhile but last I could figure they kill off the chondrocytes in joints and that lets MMP enzymes eat away the cartilage (the latter would be why the corticosteroids and NSAIDs accelerate the damage). It's almost pointless to research because by the time you figure it out the permanent damage has long been done.

There are way too many stories like ours.

** That was probably serotonin lol. Anyway thanks for the words.

I took NSAIDS and Tylenol at the same time too. Yikes!

That was 20 years ago and I’m really fortunate I suppose that I made it through as well as I did. I basically had chronic fatigue syndrome for the next 13 years and feel like I was only able to keep going by sheer will.

I’m certainly glad you didn’t jump off a bridge! I understand how you’d feel that way. Hopefully you will continue to improve.

 

[Terma]

Whoa that is terrible. I mean iirc Tylenol was less harmful in comparison but it will still hamper the liver and glutathione and I don't touch that stuff anymore. Knowing today all the other options available it boggles my mind people still get prescribed this stuff. There have to be decades of disconnect between the research wing and medical practice. Here in Canada almost nobody at the hospital had any idea fluoroquinolones were dangerous (I counted 1 doctor and 1 nurse who knew, and their info was outdated by about 5 years). The pharmacy pamphlets (still have it somewhere) have no warnings whatsoever except for the usual gut pain and diarrhea.

I had some ME/CFS-like symptoms before, and then that happened. I had a couple more problems that year at the same time - the issue I was prescribed cipro for persisted and I was in constant pain daily - so I was surviving off Kratom and it became a blur. Technically it was a high-rise apartment. I was afraid it wasn't high enough to kill me and I'd just be paralyzed on top of everything. God has a twisted sense of humor.

I mean that is a really long time. That's some will you have. Some things subsided, otherwise there's no way I would've made it to say, 2 years.

Unfortunately joint problems stopped improving awhile ago. Way she goes. I guess you're better?

 

[Blossom]

Yes, pretty much. The last piece of the puzzle to fall into place was removing high oxalate foods. I figured out a few months ago that the bacteria that help us break them down can be decimated by certain antibiotics including levaquin and others I’ve taken through the years. It’s been a long road but at least I have my health back. I realize many people who have been floxed can’t say that so I’m very grateful.

 

[Terma]

Yeah I remember there was a guy on youtube in ~2014 who was pushing the idea that fluoroquinolones killed off oxalobacter bacteria in the gut. I think there's something to that and I loosely avoid very high oxalate foods or high amounts of oxalate-containing foods too, though can't confirm if that's been major or not.

Some of those people got obliterated. Like that guy who lost nearly all his cartilage - he made a website, forgot its name. I wonder what he's doing now (if he's still there...).

They were having public hearings about these drugs in Europe but good luck getting Health Canada to lift a finger. As far as I'm concerned, Bayer owns the hospitals.

Well I'm glad after 20 years you got something back. That's pretty brutal.

 

[Blossom]

Thanks! I’m glad for you too.

 

[ecstatichamster]

they can be life saving though. My wife failed to respond to others and only one of these worked when she had pneumonia. She could have died otherwise.

 

[yerrag]

I was reading up on g6pd deficiency syndrome, in which the body would be deficient in this limiting enzyme needed in the pentose phosphate pathway, and this would affect the production of NADPH. This is a hereditary disease, and it affects both sexes, but more evidently in males, as a blood test would be positive for an afflicted male, but would turn out to be a false negative for females. The only way a female would know that she has this condition is when her son tests positive for it. This is because this disease is only passed on by a mother to a son, as it is passed on thru the x chromosome only (A father contributes the Y chromosome in the X-Y pairing chromosome needed to make a male).

It mentions that people with g6pd deficiency would be very senstitive to complications arising from use of fluoroquinolone drugs, among other drugs:

Drugs to Avoid List - G6PD Deficiency and Favism

There are many more drug, even supplements included, even vitamin C.

@Blossom, I'm glad you were able to overcome the effects, however long it took. It must have been a big weight off your chest!

 

[ecstatichamster]

I have found a few studies that taking vitamin E before taking the antibiotic may mitigate damage.

This is in Vivo but there is an in vitro study that bears this out to some extent.

Cytotoxicity in ciprofloxacin-treated human fibroblast cells and protection by vitamin E - PubMed

Quinolones (Qs) were shown to have cytotoxic effects in various cell lines including human carcinoma cells; however, mechanism of these effects was not fully understood. To investigate the possibility of the involvement of an oxidative stress induction in this mechanism of action, we examined...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Quinolones (Qs) were shown to have cytotoxic effects in various cell lines including human carcinoma cells; however, mechanism of these effects was not fully understood. To investigate the possibility of the involvement of an oxidative stress induction in this mechanism of action, we examined viability of human fibroblast cells exposed to a Q antibiotic, ciprofloxacin (CPFX), and measured lipid peroxidation and total glutathione (GSH) levels, and activities of catalase (Cat), superoxide dismutases (SODs), glutathione peroxidase (GPx). The effects of vitamin E pretreatment on those parameters were also examined. Our results showed that the effect of CPFX on the viability of the cells, as determined by neutral red uptake assay, was time dependent. Cytotoxicity was not observed in the concentration range of 0.0129-0.387 mM CPFX when the cells were incubated for 24 hours. However, significant level of cytotoxicity was observed at concentrations 0.129 and 0.194 mM, and >0.129 mM, following 48 and 72 hours of exposure, respectively. When the cells were exposed to 0.194 mM CPFX for 48 hours, the level of lipid peroxidation increased and the content of total GSH decreased significantly; activities of total SOD, Mn SOD and CuZn SOD did not change; the decrease observed in the activity of Cat was not significant; and the activity of GPx was highly variable. Vitamin E pretreatment of the cells provided significant protection against CPFX-induced cytotoxicity; lowered the level of lipid peroxidation significantly, but increased the total GSH content only moderately; no change was observed in the activities of Cat and total SOD, but a significant increase in Mn SOD and a significant decrease in CuZn SOD were noticed. These results suggested that CPFX-induced cytotoxicity on human fibroblast cell cultures is related to oxidative stress, and vitamin E pretreatment can afford a protection.

 

[Birdie]

they can be life saving though. My wife failed to respond to others and only one of these worked when she had pneumonia. She could have died otherwise.

Thanks for this info. I've thought it's best to use others unless nothing else can be used but here's a real example of when to use it.

 

[ecstatichamster]

Yes for instance levofloxacin can cure pneumonia when nothing else has worked. I know they use ciprofloxacin for UTIs when they really shouldn’t but that doesn’t mean that these are all bad and should not be used. They can save lives.

 

[yerrag]

Yes for instance levofloxacin can cure pneumonia when nothing else has worked. I know they use ciprofloxacin for UTIs when they really shouldn’t but that doesn’t mean that these are all bad and should not be used. They can save lives.

There is a risk/benefit element involved here that calls for using Levofloxacin. There is little to lose in taking it. Pneumonia, just like sepsis, is an advanced stage of disease where the risk of dying is high. I agree with you here. But I wouldn't use this class of antibiotics regularly for recurring issues like UTI.

Having said that, I had no choice but to allow use of Cipro for my mom when the bacteria causing the UTI is resistant to all other oral antibiotics, or else IV antibiotics would be needed and hospitalization is needed. But then, it would still be helpful to know that methylene blue can be used both as preventive and treatment for UTI. But this information is never revealed to us by our doctors. Not that they are hiding this information from us, but that it is not in their approved list of treatments and they aren't aware of it.

Before antibiotics were used for UTI, methylene blue was already commonly used for UTI. And the medical authorities/authoritarians decided it's no longer advisable to use methylene blue, for whatever reason they can concoct.

 

[Blossom]

They are definitely a double edge sword to be used with great caution. I’ve considered that levaquin quite possibly saved my life at the time yet left me with decades of life altering issues. I’m truly glad for everyone that has been helped by them and sorry for those who have suffered long term problems. It’s really no different than any medical treatment where we have to be informed and weigh out the pros and cons carefully. Sorry if my original post came off as extreme. I still would not personally take fluoroquinolones again unless it was truly a matter of life or death.

 

[ecstatichamster]

They are definitely a double edge sword to be used with great caution. I’ve considered that levaquin quite possibly saved my life at the time yet left me with decades of life altering issues. I’m truly glad for everyone that has been helped by them and sorry for those who have suffered long term problems. It’s really no different than any medical treatment where we have to be informed and weigh out the pros and cons carefully. Sorry if my original post came off as extreme. I still would not personally take fluoroquinolones again unless it was truly a matter of life or death.

Me neither, but I would take them for that. My family member s recovering from life-threatening pneumonia just now and only the levofloxacin has been responsible. She would be dead without it I think. The other antibiotics were tried but didn’t work.

 

[Blossom]

Me neither, but I would take them for that. My family member s recovering from life-threatening pneumonia just now and only the levofloxacin has been responsible. She would be dead without it I think. The other antibiotics were tried but didn’t work.

I’m so happy she’s pulling through! Pneumonia can certainly be deadly.